At 3:00 p.m., October 25, 2022, the Business School of Central University of Finance and Economics (CUFE) held the 14th Session of the Excellent Academic Forum Lecture Series online through Tencent Meeting. Professor Yang Guochao from the School of Accounting of the Zhongnan University of Economics and Law was invited as the keynote speaker of this lecture, and more than 50 people (including teachers, master and doctoral students, and undergraduate students) attended this lecture.

    Associate professor Dou Chao of the Department of Finance and Financial Management of the Business School presided over this meeting and introduced Professor Yang Guochao’s resume. Dr. Yang Guochao is a professor at the School of Accounting of the Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, the director of the Big Data Center of the “Income Distribution and Modern Finance Discipline Innovation and Intelligence Base” of the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Science and Technology, and a Wenlan Young Scholar. He graduated from the Department of Finance of the School of Management of Fudan University with a Ph.D. Degree. He is a certified public accountant (CPA) in both Canada and China. His main research interest is institutional and policy analysis in the fields of stock markets, bond markets and public policies. His papers (including those to be published) have been published in top domestic academic journals such as Economic Research (4 papers), Management World, Economics (Quarterly) (2 papers), World Economy, Financial Research, Accounting Research (2 papers) and China Journal of Accounting Studies (2 papers). He is also an invited author of Tsinghua Financial Review. He has won the Best Paper Award of the 2017 China Financial Research Conference (CFRC), the First Prize of the 12th Outstanding Achievement Award of Social Sciences in Hubei, the First Prize of the 16th Outstanding Achievement Award of Social Sciences in Wuhan, the “Top 10 Papers” of the 1st China Empirical Research (Finance and Economics) Paper Competition, the Grand Prize of the Annual Award for Outstanding Papers of Accounting of Accounting Society of Hubei Province (2 times), and the 2019 National MPAcc Excellent Teaching Cases and so on. He presided over many projects of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Humanities and Social Sciences Foundation of the Ministry of Education and Hubei Province.

    The topic of Professor Yang Guochao’s lecture is “Is the Cash Loan a Devil? An Analysis of the Credit Investigation Mechanism of Internet Lending Platforms”. In this research, he uses the user loan data of an ultra-short-term micro Internet cash loan App to study whether the digital footprint information formed on the basis of the borrower's social network relationship can help the cash loan platform achieve strong risk control effects. According to the research findings, the digital footprint information such as the borrower’s mobile phone usage and mobile phone call records have a certain predictive effect on the borrower’s repayment behaviors. However, the cash loan platform only relies on such digital footprint information to conduct risk control, which is not enough to cover the capital cost losses caused by the borrower's high overdue default rate. The research findings of this paper do not only confirm the necessity for regulators to vigorously screen and rectify cash loan platforms, but also provide a theoretical reference for the long-term development of the Internet inclusive finance industry.

    After the sharing, the attending teachers and students actively participated in the discussion about the topic of the lecture delivered by professor Yang Guochao, and the professor answered their questions in an enthusiastic manner, further deepening their academic exchanges.

    The “Excellent Academic Forum” is an academic exchange platform established by the Business School to fulfill the mission of “contributing new management knowledge”, which focuses on cutting-edge theoretical issues and organizational development dilemmas in the discipline of business administration and the Chinese enterprise management practice, and brings together frontier ideas and innovative ideas in China and abroad, so as to explore Chinese solutions for China's social and economic development.